One Gal's Army

J.L. Granatstein is a professor of history at York University, the
co-author of the Dictionary of Canadian Military History and Empire to
Umpire: Canada and the World to the 1990s, and the author of The Good
Fight.

As the veterans of World War II age, the compulsion to preserve their
memories grows ever stronger. This book demonstrates that this axiom
applies not only to the infantrymen who fought through Europe but also
to Canadian Women’s Army Corps vets who never made it outside Canada.
Sue Ward was a British Columbian who had abandoned an established local
reputation as a singer and radio performer when the war began and, as
soon as women were allowed to enlist, joined up. Very quickly she was a
sergeant and then a CWAC junior officer who served in training camps and
then with army entertainment shows. She met her future husband, a
severely wounded Armoured Corps officer, at the end of the war, but she
tells us nothing of their life together. Her story is modestly told,
redolent with detail, and of interest to all who seek to re-create the
mood of the wartime years. “None of us wanted war,” she writes,
“but it was there, so why not be a part of the action, rather than
waiting for it to be done with?”